Long lines of ships at moorings used to lie
Besides the wharves of ‘Frisco. All the day
The chipping hammers rang upon their plates,
While sailors, seated upon stages, chipped
The rust from hulls sea-crusted from the run
Around the Horn from far-off ports to ‘Frisco.
Ship’s booms stretched far above the windy street,
And figureheads gazed down on passers-by —
Old sea-gods, dragons, women with cold faces.
The draymen cried, and flicked their cracking whips.
The great dray-horses tossed their glossy manes,
And wagon-wheels clanked on cobblestones,
And shore folks stared up at the figureheads.
Ship’s bells were struck at morning, noon, and night,
And ship’s dogs barked, and dust blew up the street
Borne on a wind that wailed from the sea.
Ashore the fire brick stood in yellow stacks,
With barrels of cement, and cannery tin,
And railroad steel, and chalk, and coal and coke,
And here and there a cargo of pianos.
Great piles of lumber and of high-stacked wheat
Waited upon the wharves for outbound ships
For far-off ports that lie beyond Cape Horn.
The air was redolent with scent of tar,
And ropes, and paint, and barrels full of tallow —
Tallow to boil and smear upon the sides
Of each unladen ship, that she might fly,
When free, without the Golden Gate again.
The scent of paint, of oxide and red lead,
Commingled with the cold green water scent.
Great hawsers creaked, and mooring-cables clanked,
And flags danced merrily upon the wind.
Often the shore folk stopped to stare at sailors
Seated astride the spars of lofty ships
With marline-spike, and fid, and palm and needle,
Repairing damage of the stormy sea,
Preparing for yet other storms to be.
Sometimes a sort of silence fell:
No voice, no bell, no bark, no cable clank,
No gust of wind, nor murmur from the sea.
All things were hushed in the still moment’s space,
As though Romance walked watching down the front,
And all things hearkened to her cadences.
Then some apprentice, striking on the plates
Of his old, rust-sided clipper ship,
Would cry aloud, “Hey! Some one strike that bell!
Let’s take a stroll ashore!”
To-day no figurehead looks o’er the street,
No ship’s bell breaks clear music on the wind,
No mastiff barks from Silberhorn’s high poop.
Euphrosyne is lost, and Seafarer gone with all hands,
And Flying Cloud lies on the seaweed ‘midst the scattered bones
Of men who sat above those warehouses.
Only our cold sea wind, only chill ‘Frisco’s fog
And the cold scents from our salty sea,
Are as they ever were. The girls of Barbary
No longer cry at evening, “Sailor come!
I’ll show you how to dance!” No fiddles play
Along the lone length of Pacific Street. Only the ghosts
Of sailors dead in port, sea-broken men,
Dance of a night with ghostly dancing-girls
To ghostly tunes from ghostly fiddler-men.
(Bill Adams)
More Poetry from Bill Adams:
Bill Adams Poems based on Topics: Night, Man, Faces, Woman, Cry, Running, Dancing, Morning, Ghost, Space, Fire- Silberhorn (Bill Adams Poems)
- I've Been Dreamin' (Bill Adams Poems)
- Johnnie Chanteyman (Bill Adams Poems)
- Stowaway (Bill Adams Poems)
- Sea Cook (Bill Adams Poems)
- Old Limejuicer (Bill Adams Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: Man Poems, Night Poems, Faces Poems, Cry Poems, Fire Poems, Morning Poems, Woman Poems, Silence Poems, Running Poems, Dancing Poems, Space PoemsBased on Keywords: coke, apprentice, creaked, mastiff, flicked, tallow, hearkened, commingled, repairing, pianos, hawsers
- One Day And Another: A Lyrical Eclogue - Part I (Madison Julius Cawein Poems)
- Parisina (Lord George Gordon Byron Poems)
- The Golden Legend: VI. The School Of Salerno (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Poems)
- Of The Nature Of Things: Book II - Part 03 - Atomic Forms And Their Combinations (Lucretius Poems)
- The School Of The Heart. Lesson The Second. (Henry Alford Poems)